After All We've Been Through
by Renolvr
Summary: Tifa announces she's pregnant,Cloud's delighted at being a Daddy again,already one to Marlene,Denzel,and 2yr old Ciara,A crash is reported on the news, one fatality,started as oneshot,but turned into a story coz people asked me to,,Thnks for de reviews!
1. An accident

"Cloud, I need to talk to you for a minute…"

Cloud turned from where he'd been helping fifteen-year-old Denzel with his maths homework, to where his wife stood behind the bar; Tifa had been quiet all morning since returning from the doctors…

"Denzel, bring Ciara into the living room, I'll finish helping you later, okay?"

Denzel nodded and picked up his little sister; two-year-old Ciara Strife. Tifa smiled as the pair passed her; it had been a long road; but they'd gotten there in the end, and now look; both her and Cloud were married, and happily so with four years now, the Strife household was now an actual family; she couldn't have been happier than when she had found out she was pregnant on Ciara, although she had put off telling Cloud for a little while; afraid that he would perform one of his disappearing acts again…but he hadn't, he stayed and he'd been great while she had been pregnant; taking care of the bar, getting Marlene and Denzel to school, while running a delivery service………

"What's wrong?"

Cloud searched his wife's eyes with his own glowing irises………

Tifa smiled as she decided to tell him what the doctor had said;

"Cloud, the doctor took a scan…I'm four months pregnant; it's another girl………"

After a few seconds, a wide grin spread across Cloud's face, he hugged Tifa;

"That's great; I'm gonna be a Dad again!"

Almost as if on cue; Ciara ran back into the bar, a copy in hand, Denzel ran in after the toddler

"Ciara please, I just spent over an hour trying to work those sums out!"

Cloud grinned all the wider and hoisted Ciara up into his arms;

"Did you hear that hun; you're going to have a little sister………can Daddy have Denzel's copy?"

Ciara laughed and handed the math's copy to her father, who handed back to the dumbfounded Denzel;

"You're pregnant Mom?"

Tifa nodded; still smiling, somewhere over the last seven years Denzel had started referring to her and Cloud as; Mom and Dad, much to her delight.

"Marlene, Mom's pregnant!"

Thirteen-year-old Marlene Wallace simply stuck her head around the door of the bar and nodded;

"I know………"

* * *

"Tifa, I've to run a few deliveries in Kalm, shouldn't be too long…"

Tifa looked up from where she'd absent-mindedly been cleaning some pint glasses; Cloud had been smiling all day since finding out she was pregnant; it was good to see him smile; especially when you though back over all he'd…they'd been through, and still to find a light at the end of the tunnel…

"Will you be back before this evening? It's Friday, ShinRa and AVALANCHE will probably be here later?"

Cloud nodded as he headed to the door, almost tripping over Denzel's runners as he did so………why did he always leave them in the middle of the floor, for anyone to fall over?!

"Yeah, they're only small ones……love you!"

Tifa smiled as the door closed behind him, oh; how her heart had lurched the first time he'd uttered those words………

* * *

Cloud shook his head as he climbed back on Fenrir, deliveries finally complete, albeit later than expected, but no matter; he was on his way home now, back to his family…he smiled as he tucked the newly purchased pink teddy into his pocket…a Dad again…he could hardly contain his joy of this!

_How come when it rains here; it pours?_

Cloud had only been on the outskirts of Edge when the heavens had opened up…it had only been raining with a few minutes and all ready he was drenched to the skin! Even though it was still only early in the evening; the sky was dark and so too was Gaia, dull and wet.

"What the fuck?!"

Cloud swerved as headlights blinded his vision, but even as he did so; he knew the vehicle had already been too close………_Tifa_………

* * *

"You're pregnant!?"

Tifa smiled and nodded her head at Yuffie's statement, hers was comically similar to what Denzel's had been!

"Mom! Quick!"

Tifa walked quickly from the bar full of friends as she heard Denzel's shouts, emanating from the living room;

"What's up?"

"Look………"

Tifa turned her attention to the television as Denzel pointed towards it, his eyes glued to it; he highered the volume as the female newscaster spoke;

"_**About twenty minutes ago, a drunk driver crossed the road and collided with that of on an oncoming motorcycle on the outskirts of Edge, the driver of the motorcycle sustained critical injuries and has been rushed to Edge general hospital, his identity is not yet being released officially until his family are notified of his current status………"**_

Tifa felt a stab at her heart as the scene of the accident was shown…she knew that black motorcycle better than anyone………even in it's mangled form………

* * *

"May I help you?"

Tifa looked to the doctor, her head was still spinning…_this isn't happening_……

"My husband, Cloud Strife………"

At this the male doctor noticed the throng of people standing behind the well-known young woman; Rufus ShinRa, his Turks, two teenagers, AVALANCHE, they were all friends, he knew, of Cloud's………

"Mrs. Strife, I'm very sorry; you're husband passed away fifteen minutes ago as a result of severe brain haemorrhaging caused by the impact……… this was found alongside him………"

Tifa took the little pink teddy bear from the man's grip, emblazoned across it's white chest, in pink writing was; _**Daddy's Little Girl!**_

The ground seemed to sway beneath her feet as reality began to sink in, she shook her head as she sunk to her knees, unwilling to accept the fact that Cloud was actually dead;

"No, he can't be gone…I – I told him I was pregnant; he said he'd be back, it was only a few small deliveries…you're lying, you have to be!"

The doctor remained silent; he'd received this reaction numerous times before; but for some reason, this time it hit him hard, everyone in Edge knew who Cloud was, knew of his battles with the Nightmare, knew of his past………how could someone so strong and resilient have their light snuffed out so easily?

Tifa looked to where her husbands motionless body lay on a cold steel table, the white sheet pulled back to show the face she'd fallen in love with; the face she'd known her entire life………but the smile he'd sported all day was gone, not a trace of it left,

"Cloud, please…you can't be gone, I need you…_**please?**_ Denzel still needs help with his maths homework, and you know I'm no good at algebra………"

Tears raced down her tanned cheeks, dropping from her chin………_this can't be happening! I've seen you get shot, get stabbed, get hit, get thrown into buildings…and you still got up afterwards………Aerith! Why are you taking him away? What about Marlene…Denzel…Ciara…the baby………what about me?_

"Cloud, please…not after all we've been through?! What am I supposed to do without you………I love you………"


	2. Dealing With It

"Mom…I need a hand with this………"

Tifa walked to where her adoptive son's voice emanated from; the kitchen…she wiped her hands dry on a chequered tea-towel that hung loosely over the back of one of the chairs as she passed it and stood beside the fifteen-year-old Denzel;

"What are you stuck on hun?"

Denzel scrunched his eyebrows up as he mentally began running over each line of the algebraic sum he'd just finished;

"It's this; I did everything right as far as I can tell, but I still come up with the wrong answer; it should be three, but I keep getting minus five…I can't figure out where I went wrong! It's doing my head in!"

At this; the teenager unintentionally snapped the pencil he'd been writing with in two, and as he stared at the splintered remains of the 2HB pencil, tears stung his eyes;

"For fuck sake!"

Tifa watched on as her son forcefully threw the snapped pencil at the opposite wall of the kitchen; she knew it wasn't the homework that had him so worked up………

"Where are you going?"

Denzel didn't even turn back as he answered, he didn't want his mother to see the tears that now stained his cheeks…

"I dunno…a walk………"

Tifa sighed heavily as the sound of the bar door closing behind the youth could be heard; she didn't blame him for being angry…hell; everyone was………she idly flicked through the pages of Denzel's maths copy, stopping as a teacher's note caught her attention; she read the red writing quickly;

_**Not complete Denzel…why????**_

Her breath caught in her throat upon reading the date at the top of the page; his reason for handing his homework in only half-complete was a simple one; Cloud had never helped him finish it………

It had been two days since the funeral…and things just seemed to be getting worse and worse; Tifa had found Marlene crying in her room on several occasions at this stage, Denzel seemed to be angry constantly; flying off the handle for the even the smallest of things, and little Ciara may have been too young to comprehend what was happening, but even at that, she knew something was wrong; she knew her daddy wasn't there, and she didn't know why………

* * *

Tifa turned and walked back out of the kitchen as the sound of the bar door opening was heard………

"You okay?"

Yuffie searched her friend's face with her hazel irises, her boyfriend by her side; the ever enigmatic Vincent Valentine………Tifa shook her head;

"No…Denzel's stormed off again, I don't know where he's gone, and he's really upset this time around…"

"I'll talk to him…"

"Thanks Vincent………"

Tifa watched as the crimson eyed young-looking man got to his feet and exited the bar, you could always trust Vincent…"

"Mam…a daddy?"

Tifa unintentionally allowed a tear to escape the confines of it's red iris as Ciara looked up from where she sat on the bar floor; playing with her toys, wondering where her Daddy was………how wonderful it must be; to still view the world in such a naïve and innocent way, to not know the true workings of life; the way it can cruelly seem to pick on those who have suffered, to punish those who have fought the good fight time and time again…why did life choose to hate those who finally managed to find their reasons to live?

"Tifa, c'mere…"

The young Wutain princess wrapped her arms around that of her friend as more sobs wracked to woman's body; it wasn't fair, none of this was………

* * *

Denzel lay back on the white ground of the forgotten city as the sound of yet another stone made an eerie _plop _as it hit the surface of the lake………he allowed the tears to flow backwards over his cheeks as he lay there with one thought resonating throughout his young mind; _why the hell was life so fucked up?_

"Getting angry isn't going to change anything you know…"

The teenager sat bolt upright, drying his eyes, as the unmistakeably voice was heard;

"No, but what will; just tell me that Vincent?"

Vincent Valentine shrugged his red-caped shoulders from where he leant against a white, ghost-like tree, he had no answer for that one………

"If I knew, I would tell you Denzel; honestly, I would………but right now the last thing Marlene, Tifa, and even Ciara need is you losing your cool all the time…it's not their fault………"

Denzel hung his head half-ashamedly; he knew that himself, but he needed someone-something to be angry at, the drunken driver who had been the cause of the crash, had, too, been killed…so who else was there left to be angry with but his family?

"Why………why did that happen – that's all I want to know? What did Cloud do wrong? What did we do wrong?"

Again; the ex-Turk was forced to shrug his shoulders………he walked slowly towards the youth, taking in his blood-shot eyes and tired physique; life was being so unfair…

"It was an accident – no one's fault, not even the other driver, and no one did anything wrong………right now you're needed at home; Marlene is upset; Tifa is trying her best to hold everything together, all Ciara knows is that her Daddy isn't there anymore…and things are going to get twice as difficult when your new sister arrives………"

At this; the enigmatic ex-Turk turned and began walking away from the youth; having said all that needed saying…he stopped as Denzel's voice could be heard yet again;

"Don't suppose you know algebra, no?"

A small smirk played on the pale man's lip…a joke; why did all teenagers seem to have these in endless supply when faced with situations like these…but maybe again that was the best way to deal with the pain; just laugh it off in the end………

* * *

_"Sorry friend; but you got away with it the first time round, we couldn't do anything this time………"_

Cloud nodded from where he stood watching his son, unseen by all living eyes, he knew he'd been lucky with that fight; but you couldn't be lucky all the time………

"_I'm sorry…"_


End file.
